1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a packaged product for an ink-jet recording material, a recording method using the same, and a recorded material prepared by the recording method. Particularly, it relates to a packaged product for an ink-jet recording material which is free from change in hue after printing between the surface of the outermost ink-receptive layer and the surface(s) of other (inner) ink-receptive layer(s).
2. Prior Art
As a recording material to be used for an ink-jet recording system, it has been known a recording material in which a porous ink-absorption layer comprising a pigment such as amorphous silica, and a water-soluble binder such as polyvinyl alcohol, is provided on a support such as usual paper or so-called ink-jet recording paper.
There have been proposed recording materials obtained by coating a silicon-containing pigment such as silica, with an aqueous binder onto a paper support as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Provisional Patent Publications No. 51583/1980, No. 157/1981, No. 107879/1982, No. 107880/1982, No. 230787/1984, No. 160277/1987, No. 184879/1987, No. 183382/1987, No. 11877/1989, No. 21508/1991, No. 67986/1992 and the like.
Also, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 56552/1991, Japanese Provisional Patent Publications No. 188287/1990, No. 132728/1996, No. 81064/1998, No. 119423/1998, No. 175365/1998, No. 193776/1998, No. 203006/1998, No. 217601/1998, No. 20300/1999, No. 20306/1999 and No. 34481/1999, and the like, there have been described to use synthetic silica fine particles prepared by a gas phase process (hereinafter referred to as “fumed silica”). This fumed silica is ultrafine particles having an average primary particle diameter of several nm to several tens nm, and has a characteristic feature that high glossiness can be obtained. In recent years, a photo-like recording sheet is earnestly desired and glossiness becomes more important. It has been proposed a recording material in which an ink-receptive layer mainly comprising the fumed silica on a water resistant support such as a polyolefin resin coated paper (a material in which a polyolefin resin such as polyethylene or the like is laminated on the both surfaces of paper) or a polyester film.
A product form of the above ink-jet recording material is generally a roll having a length of several meters to several tens of meters or a sheet-accumulated stack of several tens to several hundreds of sheets. In a general method for packaging the ink-jet recording material in a rolled form, the ink-jet recording material is rolled up with the ink-receptive layer exposed to outside in consideration of curl, a protective sheet is wound around the outermost surface of the roll at least once, and the resulting roll is put in a plastic bag and then put in a box. Meanwhile, in a general method for packaging the ink-jet recording material in a sheet-accumulated stack form, the ink-jet recording material is stacked with a protective sheet (also referred to as pad paper) for protecting the surface of the outermost (uppermost or lowermost) ink-receptive layer placed on the outermost surface, the resulting stack of sheets is put in a plastic bag and then put in a box. As the above protective sheet placed on the outermost surface, paper has heretofore been generally used.
It has been found that when printing is conducted on the ink-jet recording material packaged in the above product forms by a printer or the like, change in hue occurs between the surface of the ink-receptive layer and the surface(s) of inner ink-receptive layer(s) after printing.